The Battle of Hawthorn Street
by truthsetfree
Summary: First War, post-Second War. Disclaimer: Anything you recognize does not belong to me.


Title: The Battle of Hawthorn Street  
Disclaimer: I do not own JK Rowling's stuff  
Rated: PG  
Characters: Original Characters, brief mentions of Sirius and Remus  
Era: First War, and post-Second War

_**Of the many battles fought in the course of the First War, one of the most important and yet most often disregarded, is the Battle of Hawthorn Street, which started just like any other, with hexes being thrown about, and ended, perhaps uniquely, in a snowball fight.**_

Kyra stared at the page in front of her. A snowball fight? The same heroic witches and wizards whose sculptures and portraits had populated the corridors of her youth, and those…monsters? Engaging in a snowball fight?

"It's true you know," one of the portraits who'd been reading over her shoulder said.

Gloria Brightman. A brilliant witch who'd given her life saving a choir of muggles rehearsing the night before Christmas in the basement of a church.

Bronz hair pinned in a plaited crown, ruby robes with bell sleeves, she'd always seemed to have an odd sort of glow about her. Powerful and riteous, innocent and serene, soft and dignified all at once, though she'd been only 16 when she…

As a child, Kyra had read all the stories. She'd read them for the thrill, the sense of justice, and because together, they tangled and wove themselves into one great mass her parents had called "history."

But what could Gloria possibly know about such a ridiculous battle?

Her doubt must have shown on her face, because the portrait said, with a half-suppressed smile, "I was there."

"We were matched for people, and evenly matched for skill. I was 14, and it wasn't my first battle, although it was the biggest I'd even been in. Fighting with others by your side is always harder than standing alone. There's always about as many hexed by their own side as there are by the opposing one. And that just serves to make you more conscious that you really have to watch where you point your wand, or else you may do damage to someone on your own side, maybe even someone you care about, maybe even someone who just saved your life.

I think that might have been how it happened. I'm sure Melvin meant to disarm Belladonna, but he managed to get Sirius instead, and then he tripped and broke his own.

Suddenly, it was just me, and that bookish boy, and a couple of others surrounded by Death Eaters, and then…"

"Then what?," Kyra breathed, on the edge of her seat.

"Then I saw Sam, who'd been facing me and probably about to murmur me into a new life as an exotic fruit, blink and spin around. There was a large spot of white on his back where Sirius had thrown a snowball. And then…"

"Then?"

"Then we ran to dive behind one of the larger snowbanks.

There were four of us behind it, and I was the only one not burned or bleeding. My wand wrist was fine, but my other was broken. Somehow, the bookish fellow, what was his name, Romulus? He still had the manuscript. I did what I could to fix everyone up, including the two I knew from their hoods weren't from our side."

"You Healed Death Eaters?"

"Of course."

"But…but they were monsters. Demons disguised as men."

"They were teenagers, like we were. They had the same capacity for good and evil we did. They had studied from the same books, they listened to the same music, ate the same food, and fell in love, just as we did. They even came from some of the same families."

"But they followed the Dark Lord."

"Or they followed someone who did."

"Did you know them, the two in the hoods?"

A solemn nod.

"She was foolish, no doubt. But she was not evil. She was never capable of evil, only of blind love. As for him, he was young, and stupid, and wanted power. Wanted people to listen to him, because he'd always been ignored. If he'd have thought, really thought, at any point, the cost might be iher/i life, and not just his own, he'd never have worn that hood. I'm sure of it."

"But how can you be so sure about a couple of Death Eaters?"

"Because she was my sister. And they were in love."

Kyra looked down at the book in her hands in quiet confusion. She'd never read anything like this in any of the histories before. And certainly not on any of the plaques.

"But you asked about the snowfight," Gloria noted gently.

"The book is right about how important it was. We were, as I said, burned, broken, bleeding.

But the air was suddenly filled with snowballs, and as soon as we were able- on either side, we joined. The badly injured were Portkeyed away, and reinforcements were called for on both sides. And though sometimes the balls were thrown by uncertain or unpracticed hands, and sometimes thrown too hard by angry ones, no one lifted a wand, not even once. That battle may not have decided the War for either side- in terms of strategy, it was useless. But by the end, there were black robes and colored robes singing God Rest You Merry Hippogriffs in harmony. The next day of course, there was death and destruction, but that battle gave all of us hope- not of victory, but of redemption."


End file.
